The old shops
of Sydney

Their stories

They might have served three generations. They might remember pounds, shillings and pence. But the 21st century is not a friendly place for a little business facing off against supermarkets and shopping centres and online shopping.

In the last year alone, so many of these characterful, tenacious places have closed: the 70-odd-year-old Oceanic cafe opposite Central station after the death of its co-owner Nellie Saravanos; Frickers Shoes in Blacktown — after 61 years in business; Vince Maloney & Co Tailors in Elizabeth Street opposite Hyde Park; Perkal Brothers shoe repairers in Crown Street after the death of the brothers Adam and Morris Perkal within 12 days of each other late in 2013.

Ralph's Deli in Darling Street, Balmain, which is featured among the shops in this feature, closed its doors in December after business became just too hard. "We probably should have changed things, we should have gone ages ago," says co-owner Mirella Aliperti.

Others remain only barely, with publicity-shy owners and tantalisingly retro interiors. The Olympia Milk Bar on Parramatta Road has its own fan club on Facebook, although its Greek owner, Nicholas Fotiou, leaves it in darkness and keeps his stories and memories to himself. He still makes milkshakes for the few who venture through his doors.

And then there are those that remain, defiantly strong, finding a niche in a new world and continuing to contribute to the fabric of our neighbourhoods.

Ted Carey at his Como shop: once, customers would moor their boats outside and pop in to grab some chops for tea. Photo: Steven Siewert

Ted the butcher

'Another endangered species'

Ted Carey
Ted the Butcher
Cremorna Street, Como

Ted Carey doesn't do marinades. "They're only a gimmick to make more money," he says.

If customers want, he'll order in ox-cheek but he doesn't get it. "That's an in-thing. I don't know why they want it."

The Como butcher has no time for in-things. His shop, Ted the Butcher, has barely changed since his father, Dawson Carey, opened it in 1926. The pale blue ceiling with its ornamental plasterwork remains, as do the tiles up the wall. The butchers' hooks bearing bolar blade and beef neck, flank and fillet, still hang from the original railings.

There's no pre-cut meat on display either so, as his father did, Carey cuts to order, slicing flank from a slab of belly, some blade from a chunk of shoulder. There's no wagyu, no gourmet sausages, only grass-fed meats and one variety of "old fashioned butcher's snag" — beef made with rice flour and herbs.

Meanwhile, 90 years or so since 1926 and the world outside has been turned upside down. "When me dad built the shop, boats would pull up outside," says Carey, who still lives in the house at the back of the shop where he grew up. "My dad never worked by times, he worked by the tides."

But in the 1930s, the Sutherland Shire Council reclaimed Scylla Bay for playing fields and tennis courts. Georges River users no longer could moor their craft outside the old Como Hotel and pop in for a schooner, or outside the butcher's so they could grab some chops for tea.

Things got quieter still during the war years. "When Adolf Hitler came on the scene everything just died," says Ted. "I had me jobs to do, counting ration coupons, and I worked a mincer, with no safety guards or anything, worked by leather straps."

Ted Carey is now 81. His merchant neighbours: the fruit shop, the mixed businesses, a garage and two hairdressers, deserted the street decades ago.

One day around the beginning of the century, to keep health department inspectors happy, the sawdust on the floor was swept up for the last time. A local artist's timber carving hangs on the wall with the words: "Ted Carey: another endangered species. Habitat destruction. No more sawdust."

"I survive; I don't want the world," says Carey. "At my age I can't play golf because me shoulders are gone, (I don't want to) sit at home in a chair and vegetate, so why not work."

The work ethic was bred into him. In Carey's first year of high school, a teacher singled him out for his athletic ability and suggested he come in early every day for running training. "I can't, sir," the boy told him. "I've got a milk run to do before I come to school." Carey's maternal grandfather owned a dairy at "the top of the hill" with 40 cows. (His paternal grandfather was a butcher and had an 11-hectare pig farm on President Avenue in Sutherland.)

The teacher suggested he stay back in the afternoon. "I can't, sir: I've got to go and help me Dad in the butcher's shop." The teacher gave up part of his lunch hour to train him — Carey got second in the mile — but in 1947, before he turned 15, he left school to work with his father.

"Even today when I take a shortcut at something, I feel him breathing down my neck."

And, over the years, Carey has had customers who have breathed down his neck too. "The old girls, oh they used to give it to us." They knew every cut of meat, knew what they wanted, he says.

"My 90-year-olds all want fat meat," says Carey, remembering one who recently died at the age of 98. "Her carer came in and got some meat with all the fat off. I get a phone call — 'I've lived for 90 years I'm not going to eat meat that's dried out like chips, give me some fat on it!'."

Ted likes the fat too — especially a crisp tail on a lamb chop — but his wife, Pam, keeps a sharp eye on his fat consumption. His health has been good, despite a recent bout of "bloody pneumonia" that forced him to shutter the shop for 10 days.

People tell him all the time that he should give it all up. "People think I'm over the hill but, as I say, I'm not going to sit down and wait for death."

And, as some form of signpost to the future, he has his big, square pencil with chipped green paint. He uses it to tally bills on butcher's paper before wrapping meat but it holds meaning beyond the purely functional.

Ten years ago or so, a customer asked Carey when he was retiring. When he said he didn't know, she went out and bought him a long pencil. "When you wear that pencil out you can think of retiring," she said.

When she gave him the pencil it was about twice as long. He rations the lead in it, pushing it from the end rather than sharpening it. "I don't want to retire too soon," he says.